If it Weren't for Bad Luck
by laurieb89
Summary: Sam and Dean investigate a strange house that may or may not be haunted. Too bad their luck is about to run out. A hurt/limp!Sam and hurt!Dean story.


It started out as a simple enough case and Dean Winchester figured that in and of itself should've clued him in to what was to come. Simple, quick, and easy were never three words that described what life was like for the Winchesters, it just wasn't how they rolled but there were times, like this time, that Dean wished otherwise.

He ran a hand through his short cropped hair as he looked at his brother's still form. He still wasn't sure a trip to the hospital was in order but Sam had been adamant before slipping into sleep or unconsciousness, Dean wasn't entirely sure which.

"You got one hour left, bro, before I haul your ass to the nearest hospital," he said to the quiet figure.

xoxoxo

24 hours ago

"It's gotta be a poltergeist, Sam. What else would be causing so many injuries? Just a matter of time before someone bites it."

"Dean! It's not a poltergeist. It can't be. The place has no emf, no hauntings, zip, zilch, nada, nothing to indicate that's what it is."

"Oh for the love of it all." Dean ran a frustrated hand through his hair as he strode down the sidewalk next to his brother. They were approaching the Spencer House, a colonial era home in rural Connecticut that had drawn their scrutiny due to a series of accidents in the house.

"I'm not even sure if this is our thing," Sam said, long legs keeping up effortlessly with his brother until Dean stopped.

"Not our thing? Are you kidding me?" Dean turned and looked at his brother, eyebrows raised in disbelief.

"Just because there's been a few accidents at this old house doesn't mean it's automatically a full on supernatural event, dude. You know that."

"Yeah, but it doesn't mean there isn't and we've got nothing else on the radar now so what the hell."

"Dean." His brother grabbed his arm, turning Dean around. "We can go look for Dad."

"So that's what this is all about." Dean jerked his arm away and headed up the street, anger and worry evident in his every movement.

"What do you mean?"

"Sammy, really, do I look stupid to you?"

"Come on, man," Sam said as caught up fully to his brother. "We've got nothing pressing us, a little down time, why not look for Dad? I just gotta—"

"Hey," Dean said, stopping and coming to stand next to him. "You know we'll find him and the thing that killed Jess and Mom."

"How do you know that, Dean?"

Dean watched his brother and swore he could see the cracks in his brother's self-control split a little wider, the ever-burning desire to hurt what had hurt him so much growing stronger.

Dean huffed out a sigh. "I'm older, I know these things, so hey, cut me some slack."

"Dean. Please."

"No Sam." Dean grabbed him by the shoulders and gave a gentle shake. "You know we can't. You know we gotta keep on with the family business. And you know most of all that when he's good and ready, he'll talk to us…let us help. That's Dad and there ain't nothing we can do about it. So what do you say? Let's go check out this house, see if we can't bag us another poltergeist."

"Dude," Sam said with a sigh, "I told you, it isn't a poltergeist." But he smiled as he said it, and Dean breathed a sigh of relief. Sam was ready to let him have his way since there was really little or no option to do otherwise. And besides, Dean knew he was right. Only when John Winchester was good and ready would he bring his boys in to help.

"We can still go check it out, eh Sammy? Where's the harm in that?" Dean had reached the sidewalk of the two hundred year old house and swung an arm wide to take it all in.

"You had to say that," Sam said. "You should so know better."

Dean laughed. "After you, brother."

Sam sighed again with a roll of his eyes. "Not a poltergeist."

"Yeah, well, we'll just see, won't we?"

xoxoxo

The old house had been empty for a good half century, that much Sam had dug up before Dean had been forced to drag him from the library with a "so I'm hungry! Sue me."

He couldn't help it if libraries were his least favorite place on earth and that he _was_ hungry. Sam had been at it for over two hours and Dean had enough. It had to be a poltergeist.

"You got the duffle?" he asked.

"Dude, of course I got the duffle," Sam said.

Dean frowned back at him. "Enough with the attitude already, geez. So what do you think it could be besides a poltergeist? Just an average ghost? A vengeful spirit? Tell me why you're so bent on this thing not being a thing."

They were headed around to the back, not wanting to draw any unwarranted attention to themselves as they checked out the house.

"I don't know, Dean. That's why we do research."

"Sam, if you can't figure it out in two hours at the library then dude, you're still rustier than I thought."

Sam stopped and glared at him. "I'm not rusty. I'm thorough."

"Yeah," Dean laughed, "you're thorough all right."

"Oh yeah?" Sam said, "Well you're—" he paused, "whatever. I'm not playing this dumb game."

"So gotta work on your come backs, dude." He snagged the duffle off his brother's shoulder and reached in for a mag-lite. The sun was nearly down and he was fairly certain there wasn't any electricity in the old house. He grabbed one and handed it to his brother before reaching in again and grasping the other.

"It just isn't doing normal poltergeist stuff," Sam said as he bent to the aged lock at the back door.

"Who owns this dump now?" Dean asked.

"Well, again, I'm not sure."

"Dude, what do you know?"

"Well, the house was originally built in the early 1800's by Benjamin Spencer and it's been in the Spencer family until fifty years ago when the last of the Spencer's died. One odd thing about it is that at least one person in every generation has died in this house so you think for sure there'd be a spook of some sort. It's been sold a few times since then but no one stays in it long enough to finish rehabbing it."

"Why hasn't it been on radar until now?" Dean asked as he followed his brother in through the back door. It opened into a large mudroom with benches and shelves filled with old shoes and boots. Along one wall were a series of pegs that had at one time held outerwear but now sat empty, the coats had fallen apart and lay in small piles of dusty remnants on the floor.

Sam sneezed once as he kicked up a pile of dust. "Cause nothing ever happened here. Ever."

"A house this old and hasn't picked up a spook of some kind…now that's just weird."

"I'll admit you're right there."

"So why now? Why is there all of a sudden stuff happening?"

"By stuff you mean a few workers falling down stairs and what not, but no one seriously injured, not really enough to even warrant us being here now, right?"

"Geez, Sam, let's not start again." Dean huffed as he led the way deeper into the house. He entered the kitchen. He could see a few halfhearted attempts had been made to refurbish the kitchen…there were cabinets torn out and a counter top had been removed. No appliances were left, nor was the sink or any of the plumbing.

"Looks like it's been gutted for the pipes and the wires," Sam remarked as they made their way through the kitchen.

"Has anyone bought the place recently? Sometimes remodeling fires up a spirit who likes things just the way they were," Dean said.

"Well, that's what I was trying to figure when you dragged me out of the library. It looks like a corporation bought the house and land a few months ago but I couldn't find any info about them, well, other than the name Van Horn Enterprises."

"And who was injured out here recently?"

"Some kids spending the night to party, an architect and his wife, and a contractor."

"Looks like someone wants to do some work then, judging by that list."

Sam stepped around a moldy sofa as they entered what appeared to be a living room, his emf on and silent. "Yeah," he agreed. "But there's no emf."

"Could be a zillion reasons why there isn't any emf."

Upstairs first?"

"Sure," Sam replied. "Who wants to go in the basement if we can avoid it?"

Dean chuckled. "Still afraid of the dark, eh Sammy?"

"No Dean," Sam said, back stiff.

"Easy, princess," he said with a poke at his brother's side. "Lighten up a little, will ya?"

Sam had reached the top of the stairs and turned to glare at his brother as Dean climbed up the last step to join him. "Dean, I—"

"Whoa, Sammy!" Dean yelled as he grabbed for his brother who had somehow managed to trip over his gigantor feet and was heading down the stairs ass over tea kettle.

Sam tumbled down the dozen stairs or so before coming to rest at the bottom, arms akimbo and his head hitting the wooden floor with a loud smack.

"Sam!" Dean yelled, taking the stairs two at a time until he was at his brother's side. "Dude, you okay?"

"Dean? What the hell just happened? Did you push me?"

He ran hands through Sam's shaggy hair and felt a bump at the back.

"What? No! You tripped."

"Ugh," Sam said as clambered to his feet. "That's a lot of stairs."

"You're lucky you didn't break your freaking neck." Dean shook his head and put an arm on his brother's shoulder. "You sure you're ok? No double vision?" He peered closely at Sam's pupils, glad to see they were the same size.

"Yeah…I'm fine." He shook his head and stared at Dean. "What the hell?"

"Okay," Dean ran a hand through his own short cropped hair this time. "It's just a little too much of a coincidence that what just happened to you is the same thing that happened to all the others. You really thought I pushed you?"

"Felt like a big hand in my back gave me a shove."

"Shit," Dean said.

"Yeah, but what could it be? I didn't feel a cold spot."

"No, me neither." Dean sighed. "Doesn't mean it still wasn't a spook."

Sam sighed as well. "Doesn't mean it was either."

"Dude, really?"

"Dean," Sam began.

"No, we are not doing this now, Sam. We need to focus." He watched his little bro take a calming breath. "Let's try one more time. Upstairs?"

"After you," Sam said with a mock bow.

Dean laughed and led the way.

xoxoxo

Sam followed his brother up the stairs slowly, his elbow and head throbbing after his tumble down the stairs. He was trying to think what else besides a spirit would cause accidents. It had been hard to think before, but was doubly hard now that his head hurt.

"Move it, Sammy," Dean said. "Don't want to be here all night."

"Of course not, Dean." Sam snarked back at his brother. "Not like we've got anything else to do."

Dean stopped and looked at Sam. "You got anything you need to say to me?"

"No," he said with a sigh. "Sorry, just—sorry."

"Yeah, I get it, bro," Dean said. "It ain't easy being a princess."

Sam drew in a long-suffering sigh and pushed past his brother as they moved to check the bedrooms.

The hallway was long and dark and Sam flicked on his mag-lite, Dean at his elbow.

"This place gives me the creeps," Dean said.

Sam nodded. It wasn't often that a place creeped out the Winchester brothers but this seemed to be the exception to that rule. The wallpaper in the hallway was a deep burgundy with green stripes and with the addition of a low ceiling, it seemed as if they were walking down a tunnel.

"Yeah," Sam agreed, shivering slightly. "Is it cold to you?"

Dean paused, "Yeah, maybe." He shrugged and turned into the first room. "But not angry spirit cold."

"Hmmmm." Sam ventured further down the hall and into the next bedroom.

"You know, Sammy, this place—" A loud thud followed and Sam jerked around, heading back towards the room his brother had been in.

"Dean?"

"Ugh," his brother moaned. "What the hell?"

"What happened?"

Dean lay sprawled on the floor, his hand impaled on a nail that was sticking out of the floor—point up. "Who the hell leaves nails like this?"

"Easy." He knelt next to his brother. "Did you trip?"

"Yeah, but over what I couldn't tell ya." Dean moaned. "I'm gonna have to just yank it, ain't I?"

"I got it. On three?" Sam wound long fingers around his brother's wrist. "One. Two." He yanked his brother's hand off the nail.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean yelled. "What the hell happened to three?"

"Well," he said as he wrapped his brother's hand in his ever present bandana. "You always tense up."

"Not always."

"Always. How's your tetanus?"

"Got the booster six months ago."

"Let me see." He held out a hand, waiting for Dean to surrender his injured limb.

"Its fine," Dean huffed.

"Yeah, let me see it."

"Fine." He extended his hand towards Sam.

"Looks like it went right between bones," he said as he studied the small puncture wound that hit Dean's hand right between his middle two knuckles. "Need to clean it out though."

"It can wait." Dean wrapped his hand up again and stood. "We need to figure this out."

"Not if it kills us first." Sam shook his head. "No, we need to do more research."

"This thing hasn't killed anyone yet. Let's just keep on looking."

Sam sighed, squeezing the bridge of his nose as he felt a Dean-induced headache coming on. "Dude, you're killing me."

His brother slapped him on the shoulder. "Eh, well, then let's live a little first."

xoxoxo

Dean led the way back downstairs, his hand thrumming but he ignored it as he took the stairs back to the main level.

"Dean," his brother nagged, "come on, man. You're hurt, I've got a head-ache, we don't know what we're dealing with, so let's just come back."

"Sammy," he sighed, "let's just finish checking the place out. Then we'll go. Okay?"

Another sigh. "Yeah, okay."

"So…basement?"

"Maybe we should finish this floor first."

"Separate or together?"

"Doesn't seem to matter if we're together or not…someone's gonna get hurt."

"Sam, for the love of Pete, we're not going to get hurt."

"Says he with a hole in his hand," Sam quipped.

"Yeah, laugh it up, Sasquatch." He stepped down the last stair and headed across the living room, its hardwood floor covered in dust and grime.

"A pity this place can't sell," his brother said. "It's really quite nice."

"Only you would look at it like something out of Architectural Digest."

Sam stepped to his left, his mag-lite highlighting the decay. "Well Dean, even you have to admit—"

Dean turned to where his brother had been standing just a moment ago, his jaw agape at the Sam-sized hole that now marred the floor. "Shit! Sam!"

He rushed to the hole, kneeling down and sliding out on his belly before he peered down into the darkness below. Sam lay sprawled on his back, his eyes closed and his face a pale white and he wasn't moving.

"Sam!"

Dean leapt to his feet and raced down the stairs, the light from his mag-lite bouncing off the ceiling, stopping at his unmoving brother.

"You with me, bro?" He knelt at his brother's side, running hands up and down his body, relieved to find only bumps and bruises.

Sam moaned and turned his head towards his brother. "Dean?"

"Here, Sammy. Take it easy, dude. That was quite a spill. You hurt?"

"Gah," he moaned. "My head."

"Don't move yet."

"What happened?"

Dean levered a hand under his brother's shoulder, helping him to sit up. "The floor wasn't as stable as it looked, dude. You found out the hard way."

"I'm okay, Dean."

"Yeah, I think you are."

"I think we need to do more research."

"Yeah, all right, Sammy. I think I agree."

"Ugh, finally." Sam sat up. "We gotta know more before one of gets really hurt."

"Yeah, as if tumbling down stairs, impaling a hand, and falling through a floor isn't actually getting 'hurt'."

"Come on." He reached down and pulled his brother to his feet. "Let's get out of here."

Dean looped an arm around his brother as they climbed the stairs. The dark seemed to be encroaching even more as he half pulled half dragged his brother along.

"Dean," Sam said, his feet stumbling as they reached the top stair. "Wait."

Dean looked at his brother with a critical eye. "You gonna puke?"

Sam wrinkled his nose. "Hope not, yeah, maybe."

"You and head injuries, man," Dean sighed. He let his brother lean against the wall for a moment, his face pale in the glow of the mag lite. "Just get it over with, bro."

"Yeah, alright." He moaned and Dean patted him on the back as he bent over and expelled everything he had eaten for the last week.

"You done?"

Sam stood up and swiped at his mouth with his arm. "For now."

Dean laughed. "Good. Let's go."

"Yeah."

Dean led his brother through the living room towards the kitchen, his mag-lite gripped in his hand. A large mirror still hanging on the wall caused the beam of his light to cast eerie shadows in unexpected places. They rounded the corner that led to the kitchen when Dean's light went dark.

"Damn it," he muttered. "Now what?"

"Don't ask that," his brother said.

"Yeah, I should know better, but damn it, but for this not being a case, it sure is turning out to be painful." He could feel Sam nod in agreement.

"Dean." Sam's grip tightened on his shoulder. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear wha—?" he began but then stopped as he heard a strange crackling sound.

"Down!" Sam yelled, his weight dragging Dean down with him as the strange sound suddenly made sense. The large mirror on the wall exploded like fragile ice on a pond sending shards of glass hurtling towards the brothers. Dean wrapped his arms around Sam's head and ducked his chin into his brother's shoulders as the glass rained down on them, making the mirrors they'd broken when they'd ganked Bloody Mary seem inconsequential. He felt a small sting on his forehead as the sound of falling glass faded.

"Sammy," Dean pushed up on one knee to look at his brother. "You okay?

"Yeah, but you got cut." He reached a hand out to wipe blood away from Dean's forehead. "You're gonna need stitches."

"Head wounds always bleed like a son of a gun, bro. I'm all right."

"Can we please go now?"

"Yeah, we're outta here." Dean said as he struggled to his feet, pulling his brother up alongside him. He scooped up his dead mag-lite and guided Sam through the kitchen and out the door. They paused for a moment on the stoop as Sam turned to re-lock the door.

"Dude, really?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, really. We don't want anyone else to come in and experience the joys of the Spencer house before we can figure out what the heck is going on here."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, I suppose you're right. Hurry though. I'm done with this place."

"Me too," Sam agreed and after jimmying the lock closed, he stood and turned, facing Dean. "All right, done. Let's se—" A muffled thunk interrupted Sam and before Dean could blink, his brother collapsed in a heap on the stoop.

"Sam!" Dean yelled as he knelt at his brother's side. "What the hell?" Dean looked around, trying to determine the cause of Sam's collapse when he spied a brick lying next to his prone brother.

"I'm burning this place to the ground first chance I get," he muttered as he leveraged Sam into a fireman's carry. "And you are eating nothing but salads from here on out."

xoxoxo

Present

Dean had managed to rouse Sam enough to get the "no hospital" response from him before he'd cleaned up his puncture wound, butterfly bandaged the cut on his forehead, showered, munched on some stale chips he'd found in the back seat of the impala and watched reruns of Magnum PI on the aging television. Dean imagined for a brief moment what it would be like to drive a kick ass car like Magnum's Ferrari when he heard Sam roll over and heaved a sigh of relief.

"Dean?"

"You okay, bro?"

"Ugh, what happened?"

"A brick."

"Oh, of course. A brick."

"I expect you've got a pretty good concussion what with falling down the stair, falling through the floor, and let's not forget the brick."

"So much for it not being a thing."

"Yeah, so much for that."

"What are you thinking it is?"

Dean sighed. "I don't know, dude. Sure could've been a poltergeist or vengeful spirit but something was off. There was no emf, no cold spots, nothing."

"You call Bobby yet?"

Dean nearly smacked his forehead, remembering the cut just in time. "No, been too busy watching you sleep."

"So that's just ten kinds of creepy."

Dean laughed and picked up his phone. "Hey Bobby, you're on speaker."

"Great, ya idjits. What kind of trouble are you in now?"

Sam smiled, his face pale in the dim light and Dean imagined a life where Sam was a lawyer, his beautiful wife on his arm and a dozen kids. He shook his head and looked down at the phone.

"Got us a haunted house," he said. "But it's different."

"Tell me about it." Dean sat back and let Sam catch their mentor up on the Spencer place. He listened as Sam and Bobby debate the different things it could be, his mind drifting a bit when something Bobby said grabbed his attention.

"Wait, what did you just say Bobby?"

"I said, if you'd been paying attention, boy, if I didn't know better it sounds like you two have been cursed."

"Cursed. That's it!"

"Have you cracked your melon, Dean?"

"Well, probably but that's it! The house is cursed, like a giant cursed object!"

Silence greeted his announcement but as he glanced at Sam, he could see his brother's wheels turning as he took in Dean's idea.

"I'll be damned," Bobby's voice remarked. "That could very well be it. Only one answer to that though."

"Salt and burn the whole damn house," Sam said. "Well, that's going to be fun."

xoxox

Sam spent the next day at the library again researching the Spencer family and after nearly six uninterrupted hours he found it.

"It was the last of the Spencer's, one Cordelia Spencer that shed some light on the whole thing," he told Dean over dinner.

"Yeah?" Dean said, fries hanging from his open mouth. "How d'ya know?"

"An article in the paper. It was her 99th birthday and when the reporter asked what she was going to do with the house since she was moving into a nursing home she said she hoped it would burn to the ground as it had brought nothing but bad luck to their family since the day it was built."

"And that's a curse?"

"No but she said it had taken enough of from the Spencer's so…" he shrugged. "Close enough, I guess. Should we torch it tonight?"

Dean nodded. "And maybe roast some marshmellows for dessert, too."

xoxoxo

Sam followed Dean around to the back of the Impala once they'd parked outside the Spencer house and helped him grab the fifty pound bag of salt and enough gasoline to run a fleet of rental cars for a week. It was just past midnight and the neighborhood was quiet, lights out and residents sleeping peacefully…for the moment.

"Be careful, Dean," he warned. The curse may not be sentient like a spirit but it can still hurt us…more."

Dean smiled and Sam sighed. His brother, the pyromaniac, was in heaven.

"Gonna burn down a whole godamn house, Sammy. When was the last time we got to do that?"

"Back in Nevada, summer of '97 I think. Dad had us burn down that abandoned house out in the desert when we couldn't find the bones of the owner's wife."

"Yeah, cause he'd put her in the walls. That was a hoot and we get to do it again."

"But Dean, this house has neighbors. We need to be careful."

"Come on, Sam. This house sits on the largest lot in the neighborhood. We aren't trying to start the great Chicago fire or nothing. Just got to get rid of the curse."

Sam sighed. There was no changing his brother's mind at this point. "Fine, but we go a little easy. We don't really need this much gas."

"We're gonna do it right, Sammy."

"Fine," he said as they carried all the supplies to the back of the house.

"Let's stick together," Dean said as Sam jimmied the lock again. "In and out."

"Ready?"

"Ready."

They worked quickly, spreading salt and gasoline liberally, starting on the third floor and working their way down without incident, the only light from their flashlights and the moonlight that spilled in through the few windows that weren't boarded up.

"No curse tonight? What's up with that?" Sam said as they headed up the stairs from the basement.

"Sam! Son of a bitch! You want to jinx us? What the hell?"

Sam rolled his eyes as he stepped into the kitchen. "Really? Come on, let's just get this done." He led the way out of the house.

"You gotta know you can't say stuff like that."

"Do you see anything going wrong now?"

"We aren't done yet."

"Well, light the match and get it over with. My head still hurts." He rubbed his brow and turned back to watch.

"Yeah, okay, princess," Dean said, splashing gasoline out the doorway and on the sides of the house before tossing the can aside. Sam handed him a book of matches and stepped back, bracing for the whoosh that came with a salt and burn of this size when he stepped into a hole that wasn't there a moment ago.

"Ugh," he said as his leg slid down into the hole up to mid-thigh just as Dean dropped the matches and the house burst in to flame. Dean turned and if Sam had been in a better position to appreciate the look on his brother's face when he spotted Sam a good three feet lower than he'd expected, he would've laughed.

"Shit! I told you. Jinx!" Dean crouched next to him. "What's got your leg?"

"I don't know. But it's stuck." He pulled and wiggled, only managing to get stuck even tighter. "Feels like something is pulling on it."

"You're too close to the house for this, Sammy. Otherwise I'd say let's just wait it out and let the fire take care of the curse but you must be stuck in a cellar or something."

Sam huffed out a breath. "Damn it."

"Hold still. You're just making it worse. Let me get the shovel." His brother patted him on the shoulders and ran towards the Impala.

"Hurry, Dean." He could feel the heat of the flames as the house burned. Images of Jess flashed through his mind and he wondered not for the first time if he could've saved her somehow. He sat back, trying to push with his good foot, only managing to pull his leg out an inch or so. He could hear Dean's footsteps returning and he heaved a sigh of relief.

"Hold still," Dean said again as he attacked the ground near Sam's leg with the shovel.

"If you can't get me free, you need to go, Dean," Sam said as the heat of the flames caused a river sweat to run down his back. He could see the sweat pouring off his brother.

"Yeah sure, Sam," Dean panted as he exposed Sam's knee. "You're almost free."

A sudden roar of the flames as something extremely flammable caught fire knocked Dean to the ground. Flames danced even higher and the heat of it was almost unbearable. Dean stood up and positioned himself behind Sam, grabbing tightly under his arm pits and with a groan pulled. Sam could feel his brother's muscles trembling at the sheer effort of trying to pry him from the ground. Sam pushed with his good foot as hard as he could when, with a pop, he was free, landing on his brother just as the flames shot up through the hole his leg had been trapped in.

"Go! Go!" Dean yelled, grabbing at Sam's arm as they scrabbled away from the burning house. He could hear sirens in the distance as the flames roared behind them. Sam slid into the passenger seat of the Impala, bracing himself as Dean punched the gas and the dark car spun gravel as it raced into the night.

"That was close." Sam sighed.

"Yeah, too close," Dean agreed. "Let's not do that again any time soon."

"Amen to that!"

Dean chuckled and glanced over at him. "Man, Sammy, if it weren't for bad luck…"

Sam laughed and finished the saying with him. "We'd have no luck at all!"

The end


End file.
